Sean King

My photo
San Juan, Puerto Rico, United States

Saturday, October 24, 2009

The First Book of the Bible Graphically Depicted. Nothing Left Out

New York Times: Crumb luxuriates in the carnality of Genesis without playing it for gratuitous shock or comic effect. Adam and Eve frolic about in the nude, naturally, but in playful, duly innocent, ecstasy. When Lot’s two daughters get him drunk and have sex with him — in duty to the system of primogeniture that dominates Genesis — the images are shocking, yes, but not gratuitously so; the shock is in the act, not in the portrayal. At points, Crumb withholds exactly the kind of graphic details he built a career on revealing: In an image of circumcision, he shows us two splatters of blood, rather than the actual penis being cut. Onan practices coitus interruptus turned away from us. This book, I believe, is the first thing by Crumb ever published without a single image of flying sperm or a sharp blade approaching male genitalia.


This is sure to be controversial, though I don't know why--the Bible says what it says.

No comments: